Drug Arrest Economics: Just Let The Tax Payers Flip The Bill
The so called 'War on Drugs' has become the 'War on Taxpayers'. Policy analysts and legislators continue to weigh the cost of United States drug prohibition as the issue appears more regularly in public debate. In "Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know," Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken contend that incarcerating low-level illegal drug dealers costs society more than it is worth. According to their publication, a $200 illegal drug transaction resulting in a three-year prison sentence costs taxpayers as much as $100,000.
The negative economic effects continue, according to the authors, once the convicted drug dealer is released, at which point, with no hope of gainful employment, he or she resumes drug-dealing. More Americans are imprisoned on drug charges now than for property crimes, with five times more Americans jailed for dealing drugs now than three decades ago. In fact, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, despite the fact that violent crime has decreased in the nation by 25 percent in the last two decades.
In total, the "war on drugs" has cost American taxpayers $2.5 trillion. A report titled "The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition," issued by the Cato Institute, estimates that ending drug prohibition in the U.S. would save close to $41.3 billion annually in enforcement costs while generating tax revenues of $46.7 billion each year, assuming newly legal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco.
Polls suggest a record number, more than 50 percent, of Americans now favor legalizing cannabis. According to Gallup, which conducts an annual survey of public opinion on crime, only 12 percent of Americans favored legalizing the drug in 1969. That percentage reached 40 percent in 2009 before reaching 50 percent in 2011. Increasing support for lifting prohibition is particularly clear in El Paso, Texas, where voters elected challenger Beto O'Rourke over longtime U.S. Congressional 16th District incumbent Silvestre Reyes in part based on O'Rourke's support of cannabis legalization in a community well acquainted with drug-related violence.
Meanwhile, Oregon's Ellen Rosenblum recently pulled off a surprise victory against her opponent in the race for Attorney General, despite strongly supporting legal access by patients to medical cannabis in contrast to her opponent Dwight Holton, who has said he considers Oregon's medical cannabis law a failure. Other US representatives who publicly support cannabis legalization include Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Peter Stark (D-Calif.) and Ron Paul (D-Texas).
The negative economic effects continue, according to the authors, once the convicted drug dealer is released, at which point, with no hope of gainful employment, he or she resumes drug-dealing. More Americans are imprisoned on drug charges now than for property crimes, with five times more Americans jailed for dealing drugs now than three decades ago. In fact, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, despite the fact that violent crime has decreased in the nation by 25 percent in the last two decades.
In total, the "war on drugs" has cost American taxpayers $2.5 trillion. A report titled "The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition," issued by the Cato Institute, estimates that ending drug prohibition in the U.S. would save close to $41.3 billion annually in enforcement costs while generating tax revenues of $46.7 billion each year, assuming newly legal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco.
Polls suggest a record number, more than 50 percent, of Americans now favor legalizing cannabis. According to Gallup, which conducts an annual survey of public opinion on crime, only 12 percent of Americans favored legalizing the drug in 1969. That percentage reached 40 percent in 2009 before reaching 50 percent in 2011. Increasing support for lifting prohibition is particularly clear in El Paso, Texas, where voters elected challenger Beto O'Rourke over longtime U.S. Congressional 16th District incumbent Silvestre Reyes in part based on O'Rourke's support of cannabis legalization in a community well acquainted with drug-related violence.
Meanwhile, Oregon's Ellen Rosenblum recently pulled off a surprise victory against her opponent in the race for Attorney General, despite strongly supporting legal access by patients to medical cannabis in contrast to her opponent Dwight Holton, who has said he considers Oregon's medical cannabis law a failure. Other US representatives who publicly support cannabis legalization include Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Peter Stark (D-Calif.) and Ron Paul (D-Texas).
